Awesome video from Rep. Defazio of Oregon lambasting the House Republicans for holding a hearing on why the DC war memorials were shut down when they shut the government down. DeFazio tells it like it is and it’s refreshing. DeFazio D-OR lays into the GOP – C-SPAN Video Library.

via A Federal Budget Crisis Months in the Planning – NYTimes.com. Amid disingenuous representations by Republican leaders that it’s the Democrats who want a government shutdown, it’s very useful to look back at the genesis of this hostage-taking strategy as this article does. In summary, the Republican plan dubbed the “blueprint to defunding Obamacare”, conservatives “articulated a take-no-prisoners legislative strategy that had long percolated in conservative circles: that Republicans could derail the health care overhaul if conservative lawmakers were willing to push fellow Republicans — including their cautious leaders — into cutting off financing for the entire federal government.” This is … Continue reading this post →

Republicans reap the fruits of redistricting – The Maddow Blog. This is fantastic analysis showing the raw 2012 vote results for the House in key states vs. the vote outcome in terms of the number of seats that went to each party in that state. The key takeaway is that even in states where Democratic House candidates received a majority of votes, Republicans actually won a majority of House seats due to redistricting that gerrymanders safe Republican districts. For example, in Michigan, Democrats garnered 2,327,985 votes to Republicans 2,086,804, but thanks to gerrymandered districts, that resulted in Republicans winning 9 … Continue reading this post →

The Tortuous History of Conservatives and the Individual Mandate – Forbes. This Forbes.com article provides a history of the “individual mandate:, the component of Obamacare that requires each American purchase health insurance. As the article recounts, the individual mandate was originally a Republican idea design to achieve near-universal health care coverage while maintaining a private health care system. In the early 90’s, House Republicans pushed the individual mandate as the alternative to Hillarycare, which would have implemented a Medicare-style single-payer (i.e. government sponsored) approach to universal health care. It is ironic that the individual mandate, which is now opposed by … Continue reading this post →

Dear friends, I write this email the day before new Health Insurance Marketplaces, or “Exchanges” will go live in each of your respective states and hours before attempts to defund the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by House Republicans results in a government shutdown that will put 800k federal employees out of work and will hurt the economy. There’s a whole lot of misinformation and spin going on about the ACA, so I wanted to provide my thoughts on what the ACA is and what it isn’t. I’ll start with some practical/informational items and will move on to broader issues with … Continue reading this post →

Cost to add more solar, wind to U.S. West power grid is small – study | Reuters. Study shows the benefits of adding more wind and solar to the U.S. West power grid outweigh the costs of doing so. Here’s the key quote: “”Increased cycling to accommodate high levels of wind and solar generation increases operating costs by 2 percent to 5 percent for the average fossil-fueled plant,” Debra Lew, NREL project manager for the study, said in a release. However, that is well below the estimated $7 billion per year that the increased use of wind and solar … Continue reading this post →

**Originally Published on Salon.com** The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot – Salon.com. How a health insurance check sent 6 hours before being shot saved my life. And what it means for you (and America) BY BRIAN BEUTLER A few weeks ago, I wrote an essay for this website about the time two young black men shot me in Washington, D.C. The purpose of the article was to bring a new and personal perspective to an ongoing debate about racial profiling that had grown particularly pitched at the time. This article is a preface to that story, which I hope will serve … Continue reading this post →

Any way you slice it, America has the most expensive health care in the world. Whether you look per user, per procedure, or per outcome, we pay way more than other countries, whether they have private or public healthcare systems (Obamacare depends on private insurance, competition between insurers, and a larger pool of insured to try to lower cost). This great piece by Ezra Klein shows how ludicrous America’s health-care prices are in 21 graphs: 21 graphs that show America’s health-care prices are ludicrous.

Canadian capitalists & business leaders love Canada’s government run health care system. They say it makes their companies more competitive while providing higher quality and cheaper health care than we get in the U.S. Matt Miller: Canadians don’t understand Ted Cruz’s health-care battle – The Washington Post.